Illness behavior and depression compared in pain center and private practice patients.

Recent descriptions of illness behavior and personality factors in chronic pain patients reflect patient populations at clinics dealing with refractory, multiple referral pain problems. Pain patients from the University of Washington Pain Center were compared with patients from a private practice clinic with regard to illness behavior and depression. Private practice patients were significantly less depressed, showed less conviction of disease, general hypochondriasis, affect disturbance and were less somatically focussed than the Pain Center patients.

Pain, depression, and illness behavior in a pain clinic population.

The relationship between depression, illness behavior and persistent pain was studied in 100 patients referred to the University of Washington Hospital Pain Clinic. The instruments used were the Illness Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) and the Levine-Pilowsky Depression Questionnaire (LPD). To delineate those aspects of illness behavior characteristic of the Pain Clinic group, their scores were compared to those attained on the IBQ by a Family Medicine Clinic sample.